Shades of Starlight (Hiatus)

Book Two: Chapter Eight

 "No!" Della shouted from behind us. I hadn't noticed that she'd been following Biana and I. Della ran to Alden's side and shook him.

"He's still here. He's not some mindless, broken..." Alden started twitching and groaning, making her argument invalid.

'Maybe I should try probing-" Sophie began.

"No," Elwin interrupted, blocking her from Alden.

"But what if I can help him like I helped Fitz?"

"No! No one is going to try anything else," Elwin yelled. "I don't need any more bodies piling up."

"Bodies?" Della whispered, glanced at her moaning husband, and collapsed. Gasping, I started forward.

"Mo-" I clapped a hand over my mouth, looking wildly at everyone to see if they'd heard. Alvar was smiling sadly at me.

"It's okay, Cass. You're part of the family now." He and Elwin started discussing Della, Elwin giving her a dose of sedative. Biana slipped her hand into mine again.

"He's right. You're family," she murmured. My eyes burned. Alden had always, always been like a father to me. For ten years, he and Della had been there for me whenever I needed them. I couldn't say that about my real parents. Sure, Mother was... nothing good came to mind. I hadn't actually talked to her since the night I came out to her and Father. Alden and Della accepted me for who I was. But now... Alden was gone. There was nothing anyone could do about it.

The full realization hit me like an avalanche. Letting go of Biana's hand, I fell to my knees on the fluffy carpet, sobbing. Sinking down into the floor, the only thing I heard was a rushing sound in my ears as I cried, eyes closed. A hand was placed on my shoulder, and then another. I wasn't ready to look up. Not ready to face them. Not until... a voice broke through the darkness.

"We're here, Cass." Three simple words, but from the mouth of my amazing, beautiful girlfriend, they meant so much. I opened my eyes and found that I was sitting on my feet, hands over my face, pressed onto my knees. The hands on my shoulders belonged to Biana and Fitz, who was kneeling beside me. They swallowed me up in a crushing hug, all three of us holding each other on the floor together. I had no idea how long we sat there like that, just the three of us, oblivious to the world around us. I just knew they were there for me, and I was there for them.

*****

"This color looks terrible on me," I told Keefe bitterly on the morning of the first day of school. It was the gross, brownish hue of a rotten orange, the same as my mastodon costume.

"Nah, you're fine. Not as good as me, of course, but okay." I glared at him.

"I'm not kidding! But you should dye your black strands some other color," he suggested. I studied the black-on-blonde combo in my compact. He actually... had a point.

"Do you have any hair dye?" I asked him, twisting one of the black strands around my finger.

"Why would I have hair dye? Third drawer to the left of the sink." I smiled and ran off to the Vortinator, calling out the floor number of Keefe's room. We both had huge bathrooms, with enormous bathtubs and showers. I'd had some pretty great spa days in the past.

"WHAT THE HECK?!" I shouted out loud as I opened the drawer and saw an entire store's worth of hair dye containers. All of them were about half full. What did Keefe do with all of this? It took me ten minutes to rifle through the dozens of containers to find a deep amber that matched my Foxfire uniform. Reading the instructions carefully, I figured out how to dye the black parts without getting any on the rest of my hair, even at the roots. But looking around, Keefe had so many hair products, and there was plenty of time before school started...

An hour later, I had the black pieces of hair dyed amber, hanging free, a perfectly wavy high ponytail, golden hair glitter, and the best hairspray I'd ever used. Keefe was waiting for me outside the bathroom and scared me half to death when I opened the door.

"Did you use all of my hair stuff?" He demanded, seeing my amazing ponytail.

"That would take me days to get through! I only used a few..." Like six, seven maybe. I didn't exactly keep track of them.

"Why do you have so much hair dye, anyway?" I deflected.

"Uhhhh... personal reasons. Wow, it's almost time for school, let's go!" He raced off to the Vortinator, leaving me in front of his room, laughing. Keefe was so ridiculous. I knew that he must have used them for pranks, probably against Father. It was almost time for school, though, so I followed him to the Vortinator. We met on the two hundredth floor, where our Leapmaster 10,000 was kept. Leapmasters could take you to the number of places listed in the name. Ours could take us to ten thousand places, which I thought was entirely unreasonable. Who could think of ten thousand places they'd want or need to go?

"Foxfire," Keefe said, and instantly we were leaped to our school. Sophie and Dex were already there, though the Vackers were notably absent. I felt out of place, wanting to be where Biana was. Would me being with her make her feel better? I'd have to hail her in between sessions to check on her and see if she wanted me to visit.

Being at school felt strange somehow, knowing that if my parents had their way, I would be wearing the emerald green of Level Four. I still hadn't actually talked to either of them. Father was never there for dinner, and Mother only sat at the table for a few minutes, to eat. Keefe and I made our own food every night. Neither of us wanted to eat food Mother had prepared for us. We didn't want anything from either of our parents. So odd that doing this felt normal to us, but would be insane for most other people. It was like I had lost both of the families I thought I had one after another, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.